smirked. “Good point. Can you at least tell me how I can get in touch with Tessa?”
“How did you even find me, stalker guy?” she asked, a glint in her eyes.
He could tell she was enjoying torturing him and not truly threatened by his unexpected visit. Somehow he doubted this girl was afraid of much. She was cute as a pixie but he sensed she was all scrappy badass beneath that sweet smile. He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. “Your name and address were on the event list.”
“You stole private documents? Now you’re admitting to your criminal behavior. That is the first step to recovery.”
Damn, maybe this girl was a dominatrix on the side because she wasn’t giving him an inch. “Look, Sam, I know you’re going to be loyal and protective of your friend. I respect that. But after the fire, they took Tessa to the hospital, and I got held up by the police. By the time I got there, she was gone. I’d like to make sure that she’s okay. And when the fire broke out, we were in the middle of a conversation I’d like to finish.”
She sighed. “Yeah, I’ve got a feeling what kind of conversation you’re talking about. But listen, she’s fine. No permanent damage from the fire. And as for the other thing, she left before talking to you for a reason. She’s not looking to start up something with anyone. You were just a checkbox on her list, a one-time thing. Be glad. Isn’t that every guy’s dream? No strings or obligation to call the next day.”
He started to respond to the question but then his mind snagged on the other part. “Wait, what do you mean, I was a checkbox on her list?”
She groaned and put her hand to the door, swinging it toward him. “Good-bye, stalker guy.”
“Sam—” But the door was already clicking shut.
Fuck.
Sam wasn’t going to budge. Plan B time. He headed down the hallway of the apartment building and pulled his phone from his pocket. As usual, his assistant, Maile, answered on the first ring. “What’s up, boss?”
“Are you at your desk?”
“Chained to it, as always. I work for a slave driver, you know.”
He snorted. “My sympathies. Whatever you’re working on right now, put it on the side. I need you to dig up as much information as you can find on a woman named Tessa McAllen, birth-date October third, same year as me.”
How he still remembered Tessa’s birthday was a wonder, but it was there, seared on his brain like some permanent brand.
“What is this regarding? Is she a new business contact?” Maile asked, slipping into professional mode.
“No, this is a personal matter. Any information you find should remain confidential.”
There was a pause on the other line. “Wait, is this about the fire? The police were here this afternoon, looking to talk to you again. Boss, no offense, but you shouldn’t be doing your own investigating. If someone—”
“This isn’t about that.” Not directly at least. A detective had called him earlier today to inform him that they now suspected arson instead of an accidental fire. Kade knew they’d be searching for Tessa to get a statement, and he’d at least like to warn her before she got dragged into it. But, of course, if he said he was only seeking her out for that reason, he’d be a damn liar. “I need this information ASAP. I’ll be back in the office this afternoon.”
“You got it,” Maile said, hanging up without a good-bye. He loved that the woman was pure, no-frills efficiency. He had no doubt she was already on task before the phone settled in its cradle. He’d probably know when Tessa’s first baby tooth fell out by the end of the day.
And sure enough, a few hours later, Kade was sitting at his desk with a pile of printed documents in front of him. Maile pointed at the stack, indicating the colored sticky tabs she’d added to certain pages. “I labeled basic stats with green. But the gist is she doesn’t live far from here, has been working for a temp agency, and has no family in the area. Also, no criminal record.”
“Okay.”
“Work history’s labeled with blue. Not much info there. Though, she is the founder of a local charity. Gossip has the yellow tabs. Lots of that available.”
“Gossip?” he asked, glancing up from the top page, which held Tessa’s address and a newspaper photo of her in a party dress.
Maile pushed her black bob behind her ears and frowned. “Apparently, she was married to a pastor of one of those big time mega-churches in Atlanta up until a year ago. Pretty high-profile guy, Sunday sermons were broadcast on regional television, that kind of thing. The divorce made the society pages since they were a prominent couple in the area. Looks like things got nasty. Each accused the other of infidelity. She didn’t say much more than that publicly but the husband had lots to say. He accused her of being a pill popper, a gold digger, a cheater, and said she shirked her godly and wifely duties …”
“Wifely duties? What the fuck?”
“That’s what I’m saying. That line alone made me want to find this guy so I could kick him in his junk. Nothing was substantiated from what I can tell. And apparently this Marilyn Wallace, the reporter who penned most of the negative stories, used to be Tessa’s close friend, so that’s pretty interesting that she’d turn on her so quickly. My guess is she had some added motivation to write up the stories. But regardless, it looks like the society pages ate the shit up. The pastor’s reputation got dinged pretty good. People left his church, and he almost lost the TV slot. But looks like after some damage control, he was able to hold on to his contract and convince his congregation to give him the benefit of the doubt. She wasn’t so lucky. The press labeled her the washed up, pampered ice princess and called it a Cinderella story gone bad. Apparently, she didn’t come from money.”
No. She didn’t come from anything, Kade thought, an old sadness welling up. And he knew beyond a doubt that Tessa would have never popped pills. Tess’s birthmother had abandoned her because of drugs. In high school, Tess hadn’t even liked taking over-the-counter medicine, so that part was definitely bullshit and lies. He skimmed through a few of the documents. “Who was the guy?”
Maile flipped through the pages on her steno pad. “Um, something Barrett. Hold up, I wrote it down.”
But Kade already knew the rest of the answer, a bitter, icy cold moving through him. “Douglas Barrett.”
“Yeah, that’s it,” she said.
Kade sat back in his chair, feeling like a truck had rolled right over him. Douglas Barrett. It’d been a name he’d tried to block out of his memory completely, one that dragged him back to years he never wanted to revisit. Doug fucking Barrett. God, Tessa had gone through with it. She’d married that sociopath anyway. And had stayed with him all those years. She’d known what Doug had done that night—well, enough of what he’d done—and had still given herself to him.
For the security. The money.
Things Kade hadn’t been able to offer her.
“Boss, you okay?” Maile asked, her brows pinched together. “You don’t look so great.”
He rubbed his eyes and took a long, deep breath, doing his best to shove the past back to where it belonged. He was beyond all that. He would not let one drop of that leak in. All he was interested in was learning more about who Tess was now. “I’m all right. Anything else I should know?”
Maile pulled a paper from the bottom of the pile and slid it his way. “Last year, her charity applied to be the sponsored organization for our annual Dine and Donate event. We didn’t select them since we were focusing on homelessness last year. But they’re on the consideration list for this year since we’re planning to choose a charity focused on children.”
He perused the application in front of him. It’d been filled out by the director of Bluebonnet Place